Back to the Burning
by Bethgreenewarriorprincess
Summary: Something about hanging out with Beth Greene at the end of the world couldn't help but make you feel like you could be a better person. - Bethyl


I've got you wrapped up around my finger

You've got me wrapped up in your chest –

Daryl figured Beth had always had him wrapped around her little finger. No matter how he tried not to; it was just inevitable that he'd eventually give in to those bright blue orbs piercing the shroud around his resolve along with any common sense he might have had. It started, albeit on a smaller level, back at the prison. He'd ask if Asskicker needed anything and she'd skim over her list, giving him only the most basic requests.

Then he'd see that look in her eyes, that wistful soft glance that she'd have whenever it was something she was passionate about like that little girl who held the keys to her heart or maybe her Dad. Every single time he'd just blink his eyes in wonder that she had that uncanny ability to do that, make his heart clench in his chest and make him feel like she was doing him a favor instead of the other way around. Then he'd find himself muttering to just give him the list and he'd find himself perusing a mile long itemized list of all the things she wanted for Lil Asskicker interspersed with smiley faces, fanciful hearts and scrolling letters, just very Beth-like. He didn't know how it came to be or why he did it but he got to saving those notes.

On nights he'd come back from a run and things would start to run through his head about this or that having gone to shit in a hurry, he'd take out those little lists of hers and all those scribbles and doodles just soothed the wounded parts of his soul and allowed him that brief respite he needed to be able to slip off to sleep.

The madness continued later. "I need a drink." He hadn't even looked up at her when she had made that request. He had gotten used to her blathering on about this or that by then and he was not in a state of mind at the time to refuse anything anyone asked then. He figured if someone had told him to jump off a cliff, he would have gladly obliged. So he was definitely annoyed as shit when she announced that her drink was of the alcohol variety and that she meant to get it right now. He thought to call her a spoiled brat then but she had made her point when she said her dad wasn't around anymore so that shut him up pretty quick.

Thing was it was damn fool idea so he'd gone to fetch her and bring her back to camp and hadn't he been shocked when she'd stood there, all five foot nothing and flipped him the bird?

"I can take care of myself and I'm gonna get a damn drink." She had sauntered off and he'd thought to drag her back again but he'd given in. At the end of the day, Beth Greene got what she wanted and wasn't that the hell of it?

He had to thank her for that one. If it hadn't been for her insistence on getting a "damn drink" and her twisting his arm to play that damn game, he might be six feet under or worse, walker lunch. For what happened in the after of that game when he had dragged her out of that shack and she had dragged out all his secrets. Under a harvest moon and a moonshine haze, he'd sliced open his festering wounds and splayed his soul.

She'd seen him as she wanted to in his book. She certainly hadn't seen him as the dirty redneck that he was.

After that night, when they'd burned down their pasts, the future rising above the smoke like an apocalyptic Phoenix, the wings singed but still able to fly, he'd been too busy trying to figure things out to deny any request little miss Beth Greene might have had. So he'd blindly followed behind her, teaching her to track, training her to fight because she'd insisted that if it was a chance that she'd be gone someday then maybe it meant she should be ready to fight if that happened.

Daryl had been happy to fulfill that request. Thoughts of Beth fending for herself made his heart beat way too fast and he couldn't breathe. She was all he had in the whole world. In fact, he was hard pressed to remember a time when Beth hadn't been his whole world. He thought he might have made a fool of himself that first night when his hands had shaken like an alcoholic fresh back on the wagon as he'd wrapped her ankle. But she'd smiled at him, that smile that he knew could light up the sky, night or day. It made it easier the next time and before long touching her seemed to be something he was driven to do. Like she was the flame and he was the moth. Hadn't everything in their lives together so far been linked to some kind of fire.

Maybe it explained the fire he felt that night sitting at that kitchen table. As she'd looked at him, he'd felt all the places that he burned and he needed her to know. That it was because of her that he was changing. It was because of her that he was trying out that whole rebirth of the Phoenix thing. Something about hanging out with Beth Greene at the end of the world couldn't help but make you feel like you could be a better person.

He'd barely been able to get her out of his mind that first night at the funeral home, when he'd laid up in a coffin (yes, a coffin) and asked her to keep singing, when just weeks ago he'd taunted her about it, the fact that she could strike up a tune whenever she fancied it. He didn't tell her then but he loved her singing. He loved the way her voice lilted and how it sounded as it hit his ears. He had thought it was him at first; that he was just being nervous because he'd told her things that he hadn't told anyone else.

Then another idea began to take form. It happened about the same time the walkers showed up. That was just the Dixon luck right there: _Something good's about to happen? Let's send down another shit storm. Things have been calm the past couple of days._ That idea was preposterous on the one hand and then in the next second he convinced himself that it was real. That she might could feel the same way about him as he did about her. He didn't know what to call it; he just knew he needed to be near her.

Her requests over the time that Daryl had known her had shifted with their changing relationship and after the prison fell, it was more of a call and answer. She called him to act a certain way and he answered that he'd gladly do it.

No, he'd never been able to resist a request from pretty Beth Greene. So when she was taken from him that ill-fated night he'd made a vow if only to himself. He was going to find her. Somehow, some way he was going to find her.

She'd made the call. "You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone Daryl Dixon." Didn't he know the answer to that one already? Wasn't that why he was here with Carol now trying to figure out what their next move should be?

He knew the answer. Knew it like he knew Beth Greene had him wrapped around her little finger. He knew it, had always known it. But the thing that he'd just figured out, the thing he'd not admitted out loud yet, not really, was that he was in love with her. She had him wrapped up all around her heart and she was wrapped up in his. He'd never loved anyone before her and he'd never love anyone else again. He knew it like he knew the aches in every one of his aging bones. Loving Beth Greene might end up literally being the death of him but he'd walk through fire for her. Back to the flames again. Back to the burning; it always came back to that. He guessed where the two of them were concerned, it always would.


End file.
